Stranded: JAD-07
by Discord'sMinion
Summary: This is a version of the Stranded story. Go to Greenstar967 and Joseph4Lego 's profiles to see the other perspectives of the story. They might explain it a bit better than I can, and their stories's perspectives might make a bit more sense. For clarity's sake, JAD-07 is a Sentry droid that crash-lands on an inhabited forest planet with Imperials. Enjoy- if you dare.
1. Prologue

**Sentry JAD-07 POV**

 _Power on. Survey the area. Observations:_

It was dark inside the cargo area of the ship. 07 swiveled its head around, taking in it's surroundings. Fastened in place, it could tell with what little light it had that the area was familiar. 07 flicked its tail, green pupil expanding. Since it wasn't time to begin exploration, it powered itself down.

Soon.

 _Power off._

* * *

All was quiet, unsuspecting, on the surface world of Aethios. Alien cries rang out, coarse and foreboding, while the wind whistled through the trees.

A stream burbled as deer-like creatures crossed it's length.

High in the sky, a burning object descends.

This is it. The beginning of a new world.

* * *

 **Alrighty, guys, this is a bit out of the blue, but I joined a fanfic club and we're all making parallel Star Wars fics. So, uh, here you go. Let's hope this doesn't turn out too terrible.**


	2. Anticipation

**Alrighty, guys! Let's begin this story for real. No short, half-chapters, lets do this.**

* * *

 _Power on._

The ship was rattling. 07 craned it's neck, and it's pupil contracted in surprise. Still tightly strapped to the interior hull wall of the shuttle, 07 vibrated as the vehicle lurched. Something whistled in the background as wind conceivably whipped around the streamlined figure of the shuttle shot through the planet's atmosphere. Everything stood still for a split second. It was almost... peaceful.

That was when all hell broke loose.

A deafening crash, and there was smoking silence.

Optic camera focusing, 07 struggled to cut itself free from the restraining straps. With it's grasping limbs, it sliced through the rope and wriggled out into the open. Adjusting it's camera to the darkness, it searched for an exit. The shuttle began to burn. It searched harder.

There! A crack of light. Coiling back with all it's might, 07 crashed through the half-open door of the shuttle's cargo hold. Out into unfamiliar territory. 07 squinted in the sudden, almost blinding light pouring in from what appeared to be a tree canopy. Shaking it's head, 07 looked down at the deep brown soil, covered in a lichen-like organism.

Hypothetically grinning, the droid swept it's vision across the light green, semi-transparent canopy, supported by thick trunks colored tan and chestnut, striped horizontally from top to bottom. Around the tree-like specimen's bases, there were above-ground roots that curved downwards into the planet's crust.

What they did down there, no one knew. No one but 07. Leaning down to begin scratching at the dirt to uncover the tree-like organism's secrets, an alien cry stopped it short. 07 lifted it's head and activated it's audio recorder. The call was deep and haunting, like that of a hollow instrument. As the noise died, it seemed to rise in pitch.

Suddenly, metal clanging began from the interior of the crashed shuttle. A humanoid figure rose from the ashes, stumbled onto the ground, and winced when he burned his hands on the scorching dirt. Looking up, he saw 07 and got to his feet, making his way over to it.

As the figure strode closer, 07 recognized him as one of the Scouttroopers assigned to the same mission. He had obviously sustained damage from the shuttle crashing, and it struck 07 to go look for more survivors.

Without so much as a chirp, it dashed to the wreckage of the pod and began sifting through the charred remains.

Opening the main hatch to the cockpit, 07 turned it's head from side to side. Upon entering the cramped space, the droid was greeted with a gruesome sight.

07 sensed the trooper behind it and swiveled it's head to greet him. An expression of... disturbance? Sadness? Horror? A combination of the three? 07 was bad at judging these things.

Looking back to the corpse, the raptor-like droid scanned the remains of the dead Commander. Clutched in his hands were the remnants of an odd, unique device, unknown to 07.

Stepping over the wreckage, 07 used it's dexterous front limbs to pick up the foreign object. It turned it over in it's claws, contemplating what the device could be used for.

07 snapped back to reality when the surviving Scouttrooper shifted his weight before exiting the shuttle. "Welp. Nothing I can do about it now."

Bounding over the remains, 07 reached the exit of the ship, and remembered its objective. Its shutter-like eye refocused and scanned the surrounding area. It detected a high-pitched chirping directly above it. Raising it's head, it detected no movement, so it switched to infrared.

07 switched back to normal vision, target found. There.

In one of the tree-like organisms (Groveroot trees, as they would later be called) sat a creature that couldn't have been bigger than 07's head, colored a light purplish-blue hue. It clung to the trunk of the groveroot, using a pair of claw-like appendages to bore into the tree's bark. 07 peered more closely at the bark itself. It was a tough covering that seemed to protect an unseen part of the groveroot's trunk.

Again focusing on the creature chipping away at the bark, seemingly occupied, 07 studied the rest of its body. It appeared to have two more sets of limbs: A pair of legs, gripping the cracks in the bark, and two wing-like structures, folded tightly to its back. 07 needed a closer look, but wasn't authorized to provoke the organisms.

Its vision swept across the creature's body, towards its lower half. A sturdy looking, aerodynamic tail supported the creature's awkward posture as it leaned over, pressed to the trunk. 07 noted that the chipping sounds had stopped. It refocused its point of interest to the head of the creature.

The trunk-chipper's head was separated into two main sections. It had a brilliant backwards-pointing crest with white and red stripes, and a face that ended in a point. 07 saw that a section of the groveroot's trunk had been scraped away, and an amber-gold liquid was seeping from the wound.

Suddenly, from the trunk-chipper's pointed snout, a long pinkish tongue-like extension lapped up the liquid. 07 watched, fixated. When all the liquid was drained, the trunk-chipper abruptly spread its wings- giving 07 full view of the limbs. The droid saw that the wings were only pseudo-wings, and weren't really capable of sustained flight. They were supported by four appendage-like structures, and had flaps of thin, leathery skin connecting them.

The trunk-chipper pushed off from the groveroot, and glided across a stretch of air, aiming for another tree.

Further research was required, but it glided out of sight.

*CLANG!*

Turning with a start, 07 relaxed when it discovered that the noise had only come from the trooper. He was beginning to craft a makeshift base out of scrap metal, tarp, and other assorted materials. Remarkably resourceful, for a Scouttrooper. Moving on, 07 decided to check out where the clearing morphed into a hill. Cresting the slope, the droid found a field full of life.

A herd of huge, lumbering animals with light green scales strode across the clearing towards a lake shimmering with green light. Over by the treeline, smaller creatures with long legs and single horns on their heads, an ivory color, grazed peacefully among the trunks. By the lake, reed-like plants stood erect with blue stalks and red berries. Among the tall grass across the scene, the amber-yellow ground-plants shook, like a group of animals was sliding through the underbrush.

07 could hardly contain its excitement.

This was going to be fun.

* * *

 **WHEW! First chapter done, and with a shameless scene ripped right out of Jurassic Park to boot. This chapter is long overdue, but at least 07's right.**

 **This is going to be fun.**


	3. Feed End

**Hmm, I'm starting this chapter right after I posted the last one, but I don't think it'll matter in the long run. Oh, well.**

* * *

07 barely contained itself in time to not barrel down the slope to scan the newly discovered lifeforms. It would have to go about this a different way. The droid opened a compartment in it's chest and scraped out a scuttler.

The small spherical drone had four limbs and one central eye, a yellow color. it would sense movement and paint a picture of what it "saw" in 07's head. The droid activated the scuttler, it's yellow eye turning green to match 07's.

While the connection was still new, it took 07 a while to get used to having a separate entity inside its head. It felt a lot like multitasking, but to the extreme. 07 was both in its body and the scuttler's. Scuttler-07 stretched its new limbs, testing how exactly the joints moved. This would serve as a good test run. If anything out there would kill on sight, 07 would know.

07 sensed that usually, scuttlers were relatively slow. But it instinctively knew how to get past that problem. Retracting its limbs and head into its round hull took some getting used to, but then came the easy part. Rolling. By shifting its weight, Scuttler-07 could safely travel down the hill at high speed.

The drone crashed into an exposed rock halfway down the slope that catapulted it into the air. 07 hit the ground hard enough to feel the impact in its original body. Safety is often relative.

Rolling to a stop, Scuttler-07 righted itself and began to walk towards the lake. It seemed as good a place to start as any. The ground started to shake as the drone got closer to the water. It was aware of something passing over it. Then the shaking subsided.

Turning its head towards the movement, Scuttler-07 recognized one of the lumberers from before, walking the opposite direction. The gargantuan creature had almost stepped on it! The drone suddenly stopped, lost in thought. Didn't these animals travel in herds?

Suddenly the ground shook again as seven more Scutadracus (a name that would be determined at a later date) trampled along after the leader of the herd. Scuttler-07's concentration broke, and it darted off to the side to avoid the crushing weight of the four-legged reptiles. Diving for safety, the drone rolled away from the herd towards the lake. Scuttler-07 inspected the surface of the water, but found nothing out-of-the-ordinary. Just regular old water. A little green, but that was the result of the planet's sun.

The drone decided to go investigate the treeline on the opposite side of the clearing. Scuttler-07 crawled across the yellow-green grass to the forest of groveroots. It heard unseen trunk-chippers scraping away at the tree bark in the canopy. Around the bases of the trunks grew that strange lichen-like plant. Scuttler-07 was more interested in what appeared to be eating the lichen.

Five or so slender, long-legged animals covered in blueish-purplish fur stood spaced apart under the boughs of the groveroots. Scuttler-07 crawled over to the low brush a little ways off and waited. The creatures had their heads to the ground, apparently grazing on the lichen and moss covering stones. Every so often one would flick a tail or an ear. The view allowed a perfect scan of the creatures.

Suddenly, somewhere, a twig snapped. One of the creatures lifted its head and took a step back.

It whinnied, and the others looked up as well. The herd started to move in the opposite direction of the sound, looking skittish. Almost on an impulse, Scuttler-07 followed.

*Crack*

The one-horned creatures wasted absolutely no time in bolting. Unfortunately for one member of the group, three four-legged carnivores burst from the undergrowth and pursued the fleet-footed herd. They had vicious-looking teeth and claws, and quills on the end of their long tails. Quickly, they separated a straggler from the herd and surrounded it. The animal bleated, and turned to run. One of the pack-hunters leapt and locked its jaws around its leg.

The straggler kicked and bucked, but another one of the carnivores circled around and bit into the throat of the creature. Its bright blue eyes seemed to glaze over, and it was done. The ambush predators began to tear into the new carcass even as it sank to the ground. 07 noticed that now would be an opportune time to move closer and scan them, as they were preoccupied with the fresh kill.

It was wrong.

As the scuttler crawled closer, one of the creatures flicked an ear and turned towards it. Lips lifted to reveal dagger-sharp canines as a pink tongue swept over them, and the fur on the back of the animal's neck lifted in agitation. The other two in the group seemed to notice that something was amiss, and turned their attention to their packmate.

Who had now begun to move closer to the drone.

The carnivore barked, hackles raising, tail whipping suddenly in agitation. It approached, hesitant, and backed up a few steps. Scuttler-07 froze, vainly hoping it would be overlooked. The creature's nostrils flared for a second, and its ears pulled back.

Slowly, as if drawn to the drone, it stalked forwards. The other two had finished all but a few leftover portions of the carcass and their gazes had shifted towards the novel object.

The third pack-hunter was close enough for Scuttler-07 to touch- not that it wanted to. It did have a great view of the animal's iridescent green eyes.

A paw lifted, set back down, and lifted again. The drone sensed something was wrong.

 _CLANG_

Scuttler-07 was knocked backwards a few feet. The camera was cracked, allowing only for a blurry view of the creature leaping towards the drone, claws outstretched.

 _Feed End._


End file.
